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I've been really busy this week, and I haven't been thinking as clearly as I should have been. Anyways, I just found out that I booked my flight back home for May 11th instead of May 10th. I bought my ticket last week on US Airways, and their change fee is $150, which is a lot since I'm a grad student. Have any of you had this sort of situation before, and if so, what are your tips for trying to move your flight to ~24 hours earlier?

I've been in a similar situation with Southwest when trying to move my flight 48 hours prior. Call them, explain your situation and be polite, hopefully they'll understand and if they don't what's 24 hours difference? But overall just be super polite.

While it doesn't help you now, one of the reasons I try to book with Southwest is that they have no change or cancellation fees -- you just pay the difference in ticket price (or even get a refund).

I would suggest that you call up, explain your situation, and try to find a sympathetic person. Ask for a manager if you need to. If no one is able to help, wait a few minutes and call back. You may eventually get lucky.

I did something like this last week with United and they REFUSED to do anything. I was nice, then asked to speak to a manager, and got nothing in return. I wrote a complaint..but I doubt that will do anything. It was 48 hours after I booked it, and they wouldn't let me cancel. And the most frustrating part was that I just wanted to buy the "FareLock" which was $1, and their stupid website crashed repeatedly so I did it over the phone with a person, and they booked me the actual flight when I specifically told them I just wanted the FareLock!!! Goddamnit I'm still mad about it. And now I have to pay another $150 unless I want my $375 to go to waste. I hate airlines.

I am curious what you liked about Continental. I fly United quite often, and while they are far from a great airline, they are miles ahead of AA. When I did fly Continental, I considered it a sub-par airline (along the likes of AA). So what routes were you flying, what made Continental stand out above United, and what changes has United done that have made it worse?

I don't know if Continental had a better track record on flights on time or whatever (though I did notice that they consistently got in 10-15 minutes earlier than their ETA, though this could be because they "loaded" their estimates). Continental was nice for the customer service.

Personal anecdote: Back in 2011 I got an invite for a friend's wedding in Brazil. Tickets were about $1900. A really kind friend of mine offered to give me some of his miles so I could buy a ticket that way and save some money. While waiting on him to transfer the miles, I kept checking to ensure that the ultra cheap rewards seats were still available (you can get a round-trip international ticket for 60k miles). Wouldn't you know it, two days before the miles came through from him, that level of seat disappeared. :( So I called Continental, within 5 minutes I was talking on the phone to a lady who admonished me not to wait so long next time, but she could "see that I'd put a hold on the reservation" (this confused me because all I'd done was browse, so maybe that showed in my account history? anyway I sure wasn't going to argue) so she gave me the flight at those miles. Now keep in mind, at this time Continental and United were undergoing the merger but many of their programs are still separate, including the rewards miles and booking process.

Fast forward six months to Feb 2012 when I am actually heading to Brazil. At this point Continental's customer service has entirely transitioned to United. On the last three days of our trip, one of my friend's tears a ligament in his ankle. He is hobbling around on crutches and just wants to go back home. We call Continental/United to talk about changing our flights, or at least going on standby. I shit you not, I sat on the phone for a total of six fucking hours over two calls (one was 1.5 hours, one was, no joke, 4.5 hours). We had to start taking shifts because the sheer boredom and misery of sitting on the phone listening to a recorded voice and shitty programmed music, when you have a sunny beach literally 200 yards away, was enough to make the most stable person go insane. At one point, about 4 hours in and at around 11 p.m. at night, after being REPEATEDLY told we could not change without incurring hundreds in fees, an associate told us he could help. He said we had to cancel our flights online and then he could swap us over. So we do. And then the line fucking disconnects before he says he's switched us. We almost start crying. We call back immediately. Maybe because it's so late, we get in within only about 20 minutes (I considered this 4.5 hour call one call even though we had to call back in). Anyway, almost a heart attack but we finally get into the flights on standby.

Side note: One guy in our group has elite status and he called in to the special elite status hotline, got someone within 5 minutes and was instantly switched, no questions asked. He wasn't allowed to switch any of us in even though we were traveling with him. We tried calling the special number, they asked for our account number, and as soon as they realized we weren't elite, they switched us out and we go back to the regular ol' hours long waiting line for non-elites.

We get to the airport. We realize that the flight is half full. We realize that we just got dicked around for HOURS by customer service because they didn't want to switch us to a flight that had easily a hundred empty seats anyway and was leaving within 24 hours - there was no fucking way it was filling up. We realized this as we were checking in at the counter, so we ask if we can just have the regular damn tickets already. My friend is literally sitting there in a wheelchair, his leg wrapped up in a brace, telling them he needs to get home so he can get medical care, and they tell us no, we have to wait for hours to get our guaranteed tickets to "make sure" there will be space. Assholes.

I get home. I think, hey, maybe it took me so long to reach customer service because we were in Brazil. I call CS thinking I'll let them know how awful my experience is. I wait 45 minutes. I hang up before Continental/United steals anymore of my life.

Sorry if that was a bit long. But I think it illustrates the HUGE difference in CS levels between the two companies, and how badly Continental has deteriorated since then.

I appreciate you taking the time out to write that. I will say that I feel it is only anecdotal, because I have similar poor stories with CS at Continental.

I would hazard a guess that this had to do with the transition from Continental to United, as I found that a poor period as well. However, I would give far from a guarantee there, because poor CS at United exists as well.

You are dead right on the benefit your fellow traveler had with his status level. I am not the biggest fan of United, but as long as I keep getting their status benefits, I will continue to select them over the competition.

I was in this situation before--booked a flight for Christmas travel, but dated it for the current month instead of December. To make matters worse, I did this with TWO flights (one for me and one for girlfriend).

I called up, was super polite and friendly, explained that I had made a clerical mistake, was embarrassed but really hoping they could extend me a one-time courtesy, that the flight fee would really be an awful financial hit for me especially as it was just an input error on my side, that I was a very loyal AirTran customer, suggested tactfully that I would take my business elsewhere if I got stuck with this fee, etc., etc. I got the first flight switched easily, but getting the second flight fixed for free was a bear. I remained polite but was super persistent, asked to speak to managers, kept on hammering my case at them, etc. Eventually the person on the phone gave up on me and changed the dates for flight 2.

In general, whether you can dodge this fee may come down to the luck of who you speak to on the phone, but being super polite and humble, but still persistent, is key. Good luck.

I know you can check into your flight 24 hours in advance and get on the wait list for earlier flights. I'm not sure how much that will help you if your flight on the 11th is the late in the day. It also requires you to sit around at the airport until you get onto a plane which might take until your actual flight.

I did it with American a few months ago (on the same day however) because my best friend went into labor and I wanted to get home earlier. It ended up not being helpful however, because my connection was delayed for hours >.<.

Do you know how this would work in terms of checking bags? I plan to check one bag, since I'm flying out to Korea for a wedding, and it was actually cheaper to fly through my hometown than it was for me to fly straight from school to Korea. Will they check a bag as soon as they find out that I'm able to get on the flight?

I did the same thing as you a while back and didn't realize it until I went to the airport to check in. It would have cost me double to change to the flight I thought I booked. I ended up on standby for a different flight the next morning rather than 11:55 pm with no additional charge.

I only had carry on bags though. You will have to call your particular carrier about this to see if this is even an option for you.

Try and only book SWA if you can from now on, 0, that's ZERO change fees. The only thing you have to pay is the difference in the price of the fare if any. Often though, even if one day it says there no seats available at your fare, if you check back later or the next day, there will be one because someone switched out of it.